Daily Briefing: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Senate approves fences and barriers for the southern border as well as restrictions for the guest-worker program. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.): “Good fences make good neighbors. Fences don’t make bad neighbors.” [WP, NYT, WSJ]

New details about Gen. Michael Hayden‘s “highly classified world” are “forcing lawmakers to reexamine a man many of them have known for years”; last-minute briefings to lawmakers on the Intelligence Committees “have smoothed what might have been a contentious path toward confirmation” and a declassified list shows select members were briefed 30 times on surveillance programs since 9/11. [WP, NYT, NYT, USAT, USAT, WSJ]

Tuesday’s election results may preview a “brewing unrest that could threaten incumbents of both parties in the November elections”; a “broader disaffection” is noted. [WP, NYT]

Bush echoes past campaign themes in speech at RNC fundraiser: “We are the party of the future, and our candidates will be running against the party of the past — a party that offers no new ideas like the Republican Party, a party that can only offer opposition.” [NYT]

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) says Bush is not appropriately funding the National Guard order: “A lot are going to be sitting in cars that don’t run and planes that don’t take off.” [USAT]

Medical benefits for state and local workers could top $1 trillion. [USAT]

Democrats unveil their own energy bill. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “Republican leaders have proposed the same old solution: drill, drill, drill. But drill, drill, drill is not going to deliver the results we need.” [NYT]

Pro-immigration activists take their cause to the Hill in widespread lobbying effort. [WP, WP]

Hayden wants to improve morale at the CIA and focus on overseas intel. [WP]

Bill Clinton will write a book about activism and community service. [NYT]